the energetic child
by special agent Ali
Summary: NFA challenge school, I chose Abby and I hope it works my hands hurt now please review


I thought this could be my perfect job, you know? Just watch a bunch of eight year olds in some dinky classroom and pray that something stuck in their two bit brain to satisfy their parents. I always knew I had a gift of understanding a child –the non monstrous ones- and helping them to laugh and just be youthful.

I hoped when I had ended college the spring of 83 and was assigned my fist job alone -after three months of observing- that I would walk into a room of angels. Well, they're not the best behaved all the time but they were mine, though back then I couldn't wait to get rid of them. I guess it was when I walked back to her desk and she glanced at me that my connection to the real happiness of life began.

September 24th 1983

Her name is Abby, Abigail Marie Sciuto, but I wouldn't call her that. To me Abigail is for old women but Abby is a young child and at age eight she is all joy and happiness. That had fulfilled me. She was the outsider to all the other children; the others wore bright colors while my sweet Abby wore a black skirt and top. Her top had a small unicorn and underneath was the word "dreamer."

You take one look at Abby and imagine her to be a crazy psychotic Goth with no future, but you would be dead wrong. Sure her clothes have no color and even her hair is jet black tied up in braided pigtails but Abby is no more Goth than I could ever be, at least not when she speaks.

It was then our first contact. I placed her paper down –a simple math test of addition and subtraction for me to get a level of their knowledge- and she stared at it and then looked at me and smiled.

I smiled back and continued to pass out the test when she grabbed my blouse. "Let me do it teacher," she said and took the paper before I could react and it cut my thumb.

"Oh," she exclaimed and the papers hit the floor. I bent and tried to pick up the fallen tests when she grabbed my hand and kissed my thumb. When she let go, my thumb was no longer bleeding and she smiled again.

Abby picked up all the papers and I decided to let her help out. Ten minutes later the papers were on my desk and she was smiling at me. Turns out, hers was on top and every problem was done correctly, she was a very smart child, that Abby.

When I flipped her paper over to place on the desk in a new pile I stopped and stared at what seemed to be all the problems rewritten but as characters. She was number five the scientist and all the numbers –especially one with silver hair number one, I'm guessing her boss- were impressed by her intelligence.

I looked over to her and she stared back and it was as though she knew how to communicate without words, I found out later just how.

As though she was entrancing me and had some voodoo doll on me I zoned out a few minutes until a young boy caught my attention.

"Hey," Abby's voice called me back to earth and a young boy had turned in his seat and was poking her with a pencil. I knew I had to take charge and so I took out a book and made him read it to the class.

It turned out the boy had many problems with reading but Abby, who moments ago was being teased by him, came to his rescue. The child was truly amazing.

"Let's read together kid," she whispered and the boy who I now noticed was crying slightly nodded and the story of 'the little engine that could' was read. She was a gifted reader as well as math and I wondered what else she could do when I remembered her drawings.

"Class, how would you like for the first day to pair up and help me do a wonderful science experiment?" I asked and my suspicions were true. Abby's eyes sparkled like bright emeralds and she turned and plopped her small hands on my desk.

I knew then the girl would teach me probably more than I could teach her and the excitement bubbled inside me. "Abby do you know how to blow up a balloon without using helium or your breath?" I asked her and she nodded.

I eagerly led her and the other children to the cafeteria where the kind lunch ladies gave me my tools. Abby smiled at my box and she took my hand and we walked outside.

The other kids were holding hands and chatting but not like Abby, she knew what we were going to do and that impressed me. "I did this once, teacher and the balloon went higher than my tall oak tree which daddy says is fifty feet high," she told me and I had to smile and the pure joy in her young voice.

"This is going to be better though isn't it, better than my experiment with the balloon?" she asked and I shrugged and she took away her hand and walked backward in front of me. "Well, either way, this will make my driving with Bubba less than ten times cooler," she said and I wasn't sure what was cooler.

"You drove with someone named Bubba?" I asked and she giggled. "Bubba's my doggie though he's a bad navigator. We destroyed our table," she said and I don't know if shock is the best term for my reaction to that one.

We got outside and Abby set everything up and I only watched her work. She smiled proudly as the vinegar and baking soda mixed and made a sort of helium and the balloon blew up to the amazed eight year old eyes. 

"Good job Abby," I praised her and she beamed proudly. In one day I found an intelligent little girl who knew all the states and their capitals, every president's name and even their term and she even told me all about Marco Polo's journey on the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria confessing her fascination for history as well.

October 26, 1983

Fourth week of school and I'm running out of material already. The other kids are easy because they don't know what my genius does. I don't know what to say or do except be nervous, the parent/teacher conference are coming up and all my children have done well but Abby may need to move up and I'm not sure I'll let her.

October 27, 2011

Gloria and Martin Sciuto are very kind people. To be frank, they never said a word, turns out both are deaf but my sweet Abby wouldn't let me get help, instead she signed perfectly everything I said.

Both understand quite well their strange and brilliant child's abilities and it's been decided, after winter break, Abby is no longer mine. 

"Ms Woodward, is that true?" she asked me before signing to her parents about her moving on. I nodded and her hands moved slowly and a small tear slipped down her cheek. It made my heart break, I believe Abby knows my feelings her.

November 17, 1983

Two more reports to go before I lose a wonderful student. I'll survive but the funny thing is, except the first day Abby is only active in the classroom. She made no friends and I'm afraid to act, I can't force a friendship but it hurts to watch her drag a stick through the ground creating her little world of people –her future where everyone loves her.

It was today though she changed. A new child was brought to Ms Judith Smith's class -who I befriended over the school year- and was being teased by my clown Matt. He had teased Abby with a pencil in the beginning and now was back to his tricks and my girl stood up and went to him as I expected.

Matt was poking the child with a stick and his friends were laughing at the poor child about cooties, I never understood that term. Abby tapped his shoulder and then to my shock, kissed his lips.

"Now you have my cooties as well, jerk," she said and he pushed her. Abby pushed back and then tossed him over her shoulder –she knows judo too?

"Abby Sciuto stop," I yelled and despite my love for her, I gave my sweet genius detention. First I sent Matt to the nurse for ice and then Abby was put in the corner and she cried.

"It's not fair, everybody hates me. I love everyone though, I just want to give hugs but no one will let me," she yelled and I sighed as I wrote up her detention slip. I let her out and gave her the paper and then hugged her.

"Abby, I know one day these number people will be human and you'll be loved," I told her and she smiled. The detention actually went well too. She wrote me a hundred lines to never kiss a boy and give him cooties and I laughed when she left.

December 8th 1983

Well, it's time for winter break and Abby understands as well as I what that really means. "Goodbye sweetie, you'll be the youngest third grader but I bet you'll do great," I said and we hugged. I couldn't write after this any longer.

January 1, 2007

Twenty four years have passed since I've written in this old journal, I found it in my attic with her picture still inside. I was called at work to say my husband, a good marine named David yearning was killed and NCIS was investigating.

By accident, perhaps shock, I took her photo with me and a man who told me to call him Jethro Gibbs took it and gave me a surprised look. I told him she was an old student of mine and he gave me back the photo but told me he had a surprise.

Turns out my girl found her dream after all and she has gotten a stronger hug over the years. I guess I had talent to teach after all.


End file.
